A "wheel set" for a railway truck or undercarriage adapted to be used on railroad cars or the like, generally comprises a pair of flanged wheels rotatable about a common axis. When it is desirable to elastically couple these wheels, the wheel set may be used to advantage for railway carriages or cars operating at high speed, the elastic coupling contributing to a uniform travel of the wheel set along the track and compensating for the negative effects of unavoidable differences in rail orientation and like factors.
In one conventional arrangement of the latter type, each of the two wheels is mounted upon a respective shaft and the two shafts are coupled together so that torque can be transmitted from one shaft to the other (see German open application - Offenlegungsschrift DE-OS No. 23 50 020).
The torque transfer is here effected by an assembly of elements which can be journaled in an intermediate support structure extending longitudinally in the direction of travel and provided on truck or undercarriage in which the wheel set is journaled.
The problem with such wheel sets is that they can be used only in trucks especially designed for the particular wheel set and constructed to support the torque transfer means.
It has also been proposed to mount the two wheels of the wheel set so that they are individually rotatable upon a common shaft. In this case, the two wheels are interconnected by respective portions of a divided hollow shaft journaled on the first-mentioned shaft. Arrangements of this type are illustrated and described in German open application - Offenlegungsschrift DE-OS No. 26 14 166 and in German printed application - Auslegeschrift DE-AS No. 28 48 398. The hollow shaft parts are connected together by a coupling affording slip between them, the slip being increased by a controller as the speed increases and being reduced as the speed of the wheel set diminishes.
These arrangements have been found to be expensive to fabricate and maintain and also show a tendency toward failure or toward unreliability. Furthermore, a certain angular relationship of the two wheels cannot be ensured.